


spires

by loyaulte_me_lie



Series: the heart is a muscle [4]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, I'm just sad about Notre Dame having burnt down so I wrote a fic featuring it that's it, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 15:39:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18479248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loyaulte_me_lie/pseuds/loyaulte_me_lie
Summary: Grantaire spends the day drawing and comes home to his family. He still can't quite believe that's a thing, for the record, but he'll get used to it eventually.





	spires

**Author's Note:**

> I'm incredibly sad about the Notre Dame fire that's raging as I write this, so I spent an hour writing some fluff featuring our favourite Parisian cathedral. I feel slightly better, and all my thoughts are with the firefighters and everyone else to whom it's a special place.
> 
> Also, this is a direct sequel to "done with having dreams" - so lots of references to that in here. 
> 
> I don't think there are any triggers in this piece, please hit me up if I'm wrong and need to warn for something :D.

**March 2019 | Paris**

Grantaire makes good on his word. One bright spring morning, he takes his sketchbook and a folding chair and goes out around Paris after he’s dropped Marianne at school. His chest still aches, but it’s turned slowly into background noise over the last few months. He barely thinks about Montparnasse and the past anymore, at least, during the day what with running around after Marianne and planning on the phone with Feuilly and melting under the warmth of Enjolras’ smile when he comes in late from work, kisses Grantaire and hugs Marianne and heads into their bedroom to get rid of his suit. And then at night, well; it’s the same as it always has been, just a new set of nightmares added to the old, but now when he jolts awake in a cold sweat he’s got Enjolras wrapped around him, a leg slung over his, an arm around his waist, breathing loose and easy to time his own to…he’s better than he ever has been. He really is. Look at him, he’s not even being sarcastic about it.

The sunshine is reflecting off the buildings; they glow, golden, and he spends ages walking through streets of them, mesmerised, a hoodie borrowed from Enjolras loose around his shoulders, the air fresh and cool in his lungs. He buys a coffee in the reusable mug Enjolras got him as a Christmas present in his favourite dingy cafe, and then heads into the Luxembourg, looks up through the new leaves unfurling in the trees. Fluffy white clouds skid gracelessly across the painted backdrop of the sky. It’s lovely, he loves it here, but it’s not quite what he was looking for. Taking a long sip of coffee, he starts walking again, pauses at the end of the tree lined avenue to take in the view of the Pantheon. The gardeners have been out, he thinks, looking at the bright carpet of flowers unfurling behind the statue declaiming its lines. Still, nothing, though it shouldn’t hurt to wander.

He heads down the Rue Soufflot towards the Pantheon, through early tourists and harassed looking law students with piles of books under their arms, and then takes a left turn into the Latin Quartier, ambling through the houses and pausing every so often to sketch an interesting detail in his book. Eventually, he reaches the river, coming out next to the Shakespeare & Co bookshop, and what do you know - there it is. The stone is pale, glinting, the arches in the two bell towers like the black maws of some amazing monster. Grantaire sighs happily, relaxes. He’s pretty sure he knew Notre-Dame would be it, but it’s wonderful to arrive there after a morning of searching, to feel like it’s the end of some kind of journey. God he sounds like a ridiculous 19th century flaneur, wandering and pretending it feeds his artistic genius, but to be honest he can’t deny it doesn’t. At least he doesn’t have a lobster like de Nerval. Though, to be honest, that would be fucking _hilarious_ but it’s more something he can see Jehan doing. Apparently Jehan’s wheelchair used to look like a giant anglerfish when Courfeyrac met them, and Grantaire is yet to decide whether that is true. Knowing the two of them…anything is possible, really.

Getting a sandwich from the cafe next to Shakespeare & Co, he crosses the Petit Pont and finds a place between the hawkers and tourists to set up his chair, leaning back in it with his sketchbook in his lap. After a moment to get everything organised he takes a picture and sends it to Enjolras.

_[bet u wsh u were hr rn]_

_[looks lovely. Leo forced me to take a tea break in the sunshine.]_

_[shes been listnin 2 me :P]_

_[that she has. I_ _’m about to go into the Assembly. Looking forward to seeing your sketches tonight x]_

Grantaire feels a little warm all over at the sight of that kiss - _god,_ he’s such a fucking _sap_ look at him - and slides the phone back into his hoodie, picks up his pencil and starts to lose himself in the clean lines of the cathedral, the play of shadows over its facade. He’s vaguely aware of people sending glances his way all afternoon; one of the police officers stationed near him hovers for a moment, says, “great drawing,” and smiles at him before he walks back over to where his colleague is eyeing the general buzz. Grantaire curls closer into his hoodie, trying to tell himself it’s _just a compliment, jeez, calm down you_ _’re thirty-eight years old,_ and keeps shading a wisp of cloud that looks like it is curling around the spire, like the breath of some invisible dragon as Marianne would probably say.

After a while, he realises there’s a little Chinese girl - about the same age as Marianne, he thinks - standing and watching him curiously. Her parents are taking pictures of Notre-Dame a few feet away, and she’s wearing a bright yellow backpack and matching boots. He smiles at her, and after a moment she smiles back, inches closer to look at his sketch. He lets her look, then turns a page and roughs out a quick drawing of her with lines suggesting the cathedral in the background, signs it, and rips it out. Her mother has turned, is calling her name, so he quickly hands it over. “For you,” he says, with another smile.

She hesitates for a second, and then takes it, looks at it, and her face lights up. She says thank you, or at least, he assumes it’s a thank you, and runs over to her parents to show them. They look up and he gives a little wave, which they return before they turn and go in the direction of the metro. He does another couple of line drawings of the cathedral that also double up as mythological creatures - see, that’s one of the _many_ ideas he and Feuilly had and even if he doesn’t end up painting it for the exhibition, he might do it for one of their friends - before he has to pack up and go get Marianne from school. It’s a good start. It’s been a good day. That’s a nice realization.

**

Enjolras is predictably appreciative of the drawings; if it were anyone else, Grantaire would roll his eyes and make sarcastic comments and tell them to stop being so daft, but he rather loves the sight of his boyfriend taking the sketchbooks like they’re one of the most precious things in the world, unfurling them on the kitchen table before he lays it for dinner and tracing his fingers over the graphite lines reverently, absolutely lost in whatever it is Grantaire’s drawn. The happiness in Grantaire’s chest swells, grows, and he has to remind himself to breathe before he chokes on it. God, this is ridiculous. Technically it’s still the honeymoon phase - as Musichetta reminds him when he starts getting freaked out about the fact he has never felt this happy for this long a period of time _ever,_ (“plenty of time for you two to have screaming fights, god knows you’re good at it by now” she’d said pragmatically and he’d tried to ruffle her hair in retaliation before she’d threatened him with her butter knife) - but still, it's beyond belief. Three months of this and nothing’s fading, Enjolras is still as wonderful as he was when they got together, Marianne insisted on him coming to her parent-teacher meeting _with_ Enjolras and apparently told her whole class she was happiest when reading a book and cuddled up with “her dads, I have three of them, for the record, and one of them also has a girlfriend, but Éponine is Éponine, not my mum,” which was the single most adorable thing he’s ever heard.

“I can’t wait to see this in paint,” Enjolras says, looking up from the picture to smile. He’s still in his shirt sleeves and red tie, his hair half-falling out of its band, and Grantaire thinks he looks as sexy as all hell, shuffles closer to kiss him. They stand for a few moments, the kiss getting more and more heated, Grantaire undoing as many buttons of Enjolras’ shirt as he can before Enjolras cottons on to what he’s doing, but then the kettle chooses that moment to whistle loudly and Eggy leaps in the half-open window with a chirrup and a dead _something_ in her mouth.

“We were having a _moment,_ ” Grantaire chides her as Enjolras goes over to sort something out on the stove, laughing.

“I don’t _care_ about your moment, I brought you a _present,_ ” he says for Eggy, and Grantaire picks up the cat, dead creature and all to give her a cuddle.

“Lovely. I love you and I’m going to put it straight in the bin.”

Enjolras laughs again, turns to look at Grantaire over his shoulder, his expression soft, as though he can't believe his luck. “Can you get Marianne when you’re done? Dinner’s nearly ready.”

“Of course,” Grantaire says, his arms full of squirming cat and his heart about to float right out of his chest. “Whatever you want, sugarplum.”

**Author's Note:**

> On Tumblr @barefoot-pianist - come say hi! 
> 
> de Nerval is a Romantic writer who used to walk his pet lobster on the end of a blue silk ribbon in the Palais-Royal. Check out AMarguerite's work for a few stories where Jehan also acquires a pet lobster (a la de Nerval) and shenanigans happen - it's fantastic!  
> (Also the use of "sugarplum" is a very oblique reference to In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan, which is fantastic and you should totally read if you like queer deconstructions of portal fantasy feat one of the most beautifully sarcastic characters I have ever met. I am totally making random notes about it just because I want to spread the love about this awesome book.)


End file.
